I waited a couple of heartbeats, before I finished up.
“Anyway, Tens was able to find me without it, and got me out of there.”
I didn’t add that I was pretty sure I would have been dead if he hadn’t. I don’t think I’d have gotten as far as the arena, either.
“No,” Doc said. “You wouldn’t have. That meal was from one of the upper clans. Next time, eat. You’re accepting their protection.”
I stored that piece of information for later, and looked to Mack.
“Thank you, Cutter,” he said, and raised his head.
“Bring it in,” he said, and the door to the mess opened.
It looked like Mack had spoken to the kitchen about providing something fresh, given we were in orbit. We got the works: fresh cuts of something resembling Terran beef, vegetables that hadn’t been reconstituted, or had the life boiled out of them, and bread—hot, melt-in-the-mouth bread with a crunchy crust. I shut up and ate, all too aware of Delight sitting at my elbow, and Mack sitting across the table corner from me. Neither of them paid me any attention, but I was acutely aware of both of them, and couldn’t help wondering why. The answer came as the plates were cleared away.
“I want you to work with Doc on identifying the arach clans you saw,” Mack told me. “We weren’t aware they were in this sector.”
“Why would anyone work with them?” I asked.
“Greed, sweetie,” Delight told me. “It’s always greed. Odyssey will take care of the Costral clans. They’re more compromised than they know, if Andreus’s dealings went beyond his attempt to blackmail the clans with the loss of the station. That’s usually the first step for an arach invasion: infiltrate in the guise of lucrative trade, take out the external communications, isolate the solar system, fortify the planet and system against all-comers, start building a fleet staging point. If it hadn’t been for this business with Melari and Treivani, we’d never have known in time to intervene.”
It was strange, but by ‘intervene’, I thought she was referring to Odyssey rather than InterGal, and, until that moment, I hadn’t thought the company that wide-spread.
“You’d be surprised, sweetie,” Delight said, but she kept her voice soft, and I wondered if she was actually talking to me, or if she was talking to herself.
She didn’t choose to clarify it, so I left it.
I didn’t want to go digging into the arach clans. I hadn’t known they existed before this mission, and I would be just as happy not knowing they existed, now. Andreus’s reason for unleashing a virus on the station was becoming painfully clear, since there was nothing like a plague to have a planet indicted, and a solar system made a no-go zone. Isolation in a can, so to speak.
I shivered. If any of the ships that had gotten off the station had taken the virus to the adjoining sectors, then Andreus would have succeeded in isolating the system without losing the station, or blowing the warp gates. InterGalPol would have locked it down tight, until a cure could be found. No wonder he’d wanted Treivani. She’d survived any number of plagues while under Blaedergil’s care. He’d have been able to isolate the cure for enough of Blaedergil’s infections to keep the remaining population of Costral healthy.
And I guessed it wasn’t for trade.
“Only fools believe the arach trading line,” Delight said. “Unfortunately, the idea of making a lot of credits makes people stupid. Andreus wouldn’t have known what was coming until it was too late—and once he’d come under the influence of an arach queen, he wouldn’t have cared.”
I didn’t want to know what a queen could do, and Delight didn’t enlighten me. We ate the rest of the meal in silence, and I followed Doc out the door.
“There’s a reward for alerting the authorities to an impending arach invasion,” Doc told me, “as well as one for identifying collaborators. Make sure Mack puts those claims in to Odyssey when he writes up their invoice.”
I stared at him, wondering what made him think I would be anywhere near Mack when he was billing his employers.
“Well, just check to make sure he hasn’t forgotten,” Doc grumbled. “I could do with the extra cred.”
I wondered what for, but it didn’t seem polite to ask, so I just nodded. The further down the hall we got, the more the time on the arach ship caught up with me. Fatigue made me want to sleep, but I didn’t say anything; Mack said this was important, and nightmares lurked at the edges of my mind. There was something mildly threatening about sleep.
We moved past the rec room, and into a quiet section where corrals were set around a bank of central computers. I stopped. This was new to me. Doc turned back.
“Library and research section,” he said. “We keep these separate to the main ship’s systems, in case someone downloads a bug. These things service the simulators, too.”
They had sims? I felt my interest spark. I hadn’t encountered simulators until after I’d started at Odyssey. Axe had insisted on dragging the Specials out to one of the local gaming centers once a week, and putting us through our paces. Okay, he’d enjoyed kicking our tails in the various zombie apocalypse games he’d found—didn’t enjoy it so much when I returned the favor.
“We have more than games,” Doc said, “but, right now, we need to know which arach fleet we’re dealing with—or if we’re dealing with an entirely new one.”
There was more than one?
He patted my shoulder.
“You have no idea, kid. No idea...”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but he led the way into a booth, and pulled out a chair.
“Take a seat, and plug in,” he said. “We need all the arach footage you’ve got.”
“Do you want the stuff from the labs?” I asked, and I
